The Planetary Grave
by Quillian
Summary: One shot!  After the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, Han visits the planet where his best friend died... [SLIGHT NJO SPOILERS]


**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own the _Star Wars_ universe or anything part of it; George Lucas does.

SUMMARY: After the end of the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, Han Solo flies back to where it all began, on the now-dead planet of Sernpidal…

**WARNING:** CONSIDERABLE SPOILERS, seeing this takes place after the entire _New Jedi Order_ series, mainly touches upon events from _Vector Prime_ by R.A. Salvatore, and also nods a bit to the Han Solo trilogy by A.C. Crispin.

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"**_The Planetary Grave,"_**

_By Quillian_

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_Dedicated to **R.A. Salvatore**, not only for giving Chewbacca a noble death as opposed to an ignoble one, but also for having to put up with the unwarranted flack by some upset fans._

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One moment, space was quiet… but the next, a lone disc-shaped, modified YT-1300 Correlian freighter exited hyperspace and returned to real space.

It was the _Millenium_ _Falcon._

There was only one person on board, sitting in the pilot's seat: Han Solo.

As he told his family and friends, this was just something he had to do alone.

Wobbling in its orbit, the now-dead planet of Sernpidal could be seen through his viewport.

Now dark brown and grey, it would probably take centuries, even millennia, for all the dust to settle.

Somewhere down there, five years ago, Han Solo had lost the friend he'd known the longest:

_Chewbacca._

Chewie remembered how he sacrificed his entire career in the Imperial Navy to save Chewbacca's life. He hated the dishonorable discharge, but he never regretted saving the Wookiee's life.

Han remembered all the times in his life before that fateful day when he first met an old man, a farmboy and two droids in Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine. He remembered all the times they smuggled goods together, remembered Chewie's wedding to his beloved, remembered defending Nar Shaddaa from the Imperials, remembered when Chewie's son was born, and remembered when they effectively lay waste to the so-called "religious retreat" on Ylesia.

Then there were those times Chewie was by his side during the fight against the Empire, starting from that fateful day on Tatooine. Fighting on board the Death Star… helping Luke blow up the Death Star… flying through the asteroid field in an attempt to escape the Imperial fleet… the betrayal on Cloud City on Bespin… being rescued from Jabba the Hutt's grip… battling and winning on Endor…

Even in all the years after Endor but before the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Chewie was always there, as a sort of brother to Han, although not in blood.

And now, he was gone.

It may have been five years after his death – five years after the start of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion – but now that it was over, it only felt right somehow to return here and try to put a ghost of the past behind.

While Han may have been practically the only one in the Skywalker/Solo clan who was not Force-sensitive, he had seen and witnessed enough over the past thirty or so years to know that it did exist, and the deceased existed somewhere behind some sort of metaphysical veil. Whether the Force-strong and the Force-weak went to two separate places behind that veil was anybody's guess, but that didn't stop Han from speaking aloud and freely, addressing the planetary grave in front of him.

Well, at least Chewie got a proper burial… an odd notion in modern times, when cremation was the most-often used method of disposing the bodies of the deceased, but it was better than nothing, Han supposed.

Han essentially poured his heart out, admitting to taking out his anger on his late son, Anakin, for Chewie's death. How much he missed Chewie, how much he wished it never came to this, how much he wished something different could have happened for the better…

Stang it, just because Chewie owed Han a life debt, that didn't mean that Han wanted Chewie to actually die for him!

Perhaps without even realizing it, all the successes Han contributed to, from the time of the Empire to the time of the New Republic, had made him a little arrogant, making him think that he and his friends and family were invincible and could never be stopped. That nothing could never bring them down.

Han had said something to Chewie once about delusions of grandeur… oh, how that memory seemed to stick out in his mind right about now…

The former smuggler spent what felt like hours staring at what was once Sernpidal (he would later check his chronometer and find out it had only been minutes).

As he prepared the ship's hyperdrive to leave the system, he took one last look at the dead planet and said, "See ya soon, Chewie… but hopefully, not _too_ soon."

And with that, Han left the planetary grave, feeling somewhat better.

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A/N: So, how was this one-shot?

Note about the dedication to R.A. Salvatore: I read about how he got hate mail and even death threats over Chewbacca's death, even though it wasn't his fault. So, to make a long story short, I decided to dedicate this to Mr. Salvatore for mainly giving Chewie a noble, heroic death.

Time for me to get back to my other work, I think… –_Quillian_

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End file.
